Arriving
What you carry for a year is decided by what you can’t replace where you’re going
Packing for a long stay is a sourcing question rather than a volume question, and the things worth their…
· 4 min read
Tomas Bergqvist
Features writer, Globetrotter Talks
Tomas writes the explanatory pieces on arriving, visas & paperwork, money abroad and prefers a plain explanation to a clever one.
15 articles
Arriving
The first supermarket visit is a mapping exercise more than a shop
Food is where a long stay first stops being an experience and starts being a household, and the shelves…
· 4 min read
Arriving
The transport a resident buys is not the transport a visitor buys
Season tickets, residents’ cards and zone boundaries are priced for people who travel the same route daily…
· 3 min read
Money Abroad
Credit history does not travel, and that is by design
A twenty-year record of paying bills on time stops at the border, because credit reporting is built on…
· 3 min read
Settling In
Furnishing a flat you may leave is an argument about resale
Everything bought for a temporary home has to be sold, given away or abandoned at the end, which makes the…
· 3 min read
Settling In
Insurance you never needed at home may be compulsory here
Cover that is optional in one country can be legally required in another, and personal liability is the…
· 3 min read
Leaving
Returning home is a second arrival and nobody treats it as one
Going back is widely assumed to be the easy part, and it frequently turns out to be harder than the…
· 3 min read
Leaving
What to keep copies of after a stay ends, and for how long
A period abroad generates documents that become relevant years later, at a border, a tax enquiry or a…
· 3 min read
Leaving
What a long stay leaves behind is mostly a change in what you notice
The durable result of living somewhere else is rarely the language or the anecdotes; it is a permanent…
· 3 min read
Arriving
The information you want in an emergency has to be gathered before one
Knowing which number to call, what to say and where to go is trivial to establish in the first week and…
· 3 min read
Money Abroad
The commitments you left at home keep running without you
Loans, policies, memberships and small recurring charges continue after a departure, and the ones that…
· 3 min read
Settling In
Friendships at home fade through absence rather than through disagreement
The relationships that survive a long stay abroad are rarely the ones that were closest at the moment of…
· 3 min read
Settling In
What you left in storage is a statement about whether you are coming back
The boxes in a unit at home or in a relative’s loft are a monthly payment towards a version of the future…
· 3 min read
Leaving
Leaving is hardest when the household does not agree about it
One person is finished with a place at the moment another has finally settled into it, and the decision…
· 3 min read
Leaving
Selling a car abroad is about transferring liability, not the vehicle
Anything you own that is recorded in a register stays attached to you until the register says otherwise…
· 3 min read